Sentimental Shooting

System: PC
Release Date: 2001
Published By: While{1};
Reviewed by: Darien
Rating:

Yet more proof of my theory that games are markedly improved by pictures of naked women.

Sentimental Shooting is a perfectly rudimentary top-down shooter with none of the sophistication of a game like Ikaruga. It does, however, have more pictures of naked women than Ikaruga. The idea is, every level is a picture of a girl. In addition to the constantly-spawning enemy ships trying to blow thine entire ass up, you have to shoot at various parts of the background and destroy her clothing. If you clear off all of her clothing (usually, but not always, down to bra and panties), you get to move on to the next stage, in which you fight a boss ship and get an opportunity to clear off her underwear, too. And then, if you beat the boss without losing any lives or using any of your "scrollstop" power (I'll get to it), AND you get the girl completely naked, you fight the special secret boss. Beat him, and you're rewarded with an "omake" picture of the girl in question (omake is Japanese for "random shit").

Really, it's more fun than you think. The naked women aside, I was rather getting in to the mechanic of shooting all the target zones in the background; the first stage in each set is auto-scrolling, and you have only so many opportunities to get any given target. But that's where the scrollstop comes in! For each life, you get so much scrollstop power. Activating it takes a big chunk out of the meter, and then slowly depletes it as long as you hold the button. But it stops the screen from scrolling, giving you more time to blast out the targets. Also, activating it destroys all enemy projectiles on the screen.

Realistically, this game isn't going to hold your attention for very long. The gameplay is limited, though engaging, the graphics are nothing special and the sound is dated. But it's a fun way to blow a little time now and again, and, hey, naked women. Too bad about that mosaic. Oh, and, yes; the name of the publisher is "While{1};." I'm glad they included naked women to make me feel less gay after being amused by that.

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